Tuesday, November 10

On a recent Saturday, @cthon1cmade an earthly appearance to celebrate his 40th birthday, one week early. Friends and relatives traipsed over to Red Hook—during that weekend the subways weren’t working—to the apartment marked by some sort of “bug sculpture,” he calls it, in the window.

Philip Nobel, as he’s more commonly known, is an architecture critic, for lack of better description. He also has a degree in the field, which will become relevant in a minute. We met a few years ago at one of his famous "Best Party[s] Ever." At that party, and during this last one, guests slipped past the refrigerator and out to the backyard where his majestic, first-built work presides: a multi-level slatted wood fort made for his boys but overrun by drunken adults. It’s King of the Mountain, plus tequila, minus daylight.

This week, Homebodies tours Philip’s place in Red Hook (he lives here and upstate with lady friend Nathalie Jonas). But before we act like grown-ups and socialize indoors with strangers and our New York Times editors, let’s first capture the fort.

On this night, he’d tossed an industrial work light into a corner of one of the towers, and it cast crazy-dramatic shadows on the walls. (Crazy? Dramatic? Philip? Hell, no.) Enter exhibitionists, dancers, writers, lovers, and smokers. Best. Party. Ever.